I don't know if some of the regulars on this thread remember me... I posted for a while back in the spring/summer, I was really struggling with the push pull of giving up and then giving in.
After a particularly bad weekend when I ended up staying up all night and going back home to my husband ignoring me, I finally found the strength to knock it all on the head. I realised I couldn't get away with it much longer without it seriously affecting my marriage.
I had been quite seriously addicted, on and off for around ten years, so this was no mean feat. I don't know why it worked this time (that I gave up) and not all the other times. I think I'd finally had enough of all the negatives, and finally realised that I couldn't dabble/have a little bit occasionally. Which I knew all along really, but oh how we addicts lie to ourselves to keep the addiction going.
I didn't go to meetings. I did join an internet forum, sober recovery, and used a technique called rational recovery where you see yourself as separate from your addict self and learn to take the control back. It was tough at first. I got rid of all my contacts/numbers and basically just resolved not to do it again.
Since then I had one tiny lapse when I went out with some friends and one of them got a gram in, I literally had a line shoved under my nose and I had a couple but I didn't really want to I was just caught up in the moment and had been drinking. I then couldn't sleep all night and felt shit the next day, I realised I hadn't missed much.
So apart from that lapse it's been around 6 months and whilst there may be the odd moment when I miss it, I'm mentally over it and don't anticipate I'll ever get back in to it (I very seldom socialise with the mate who got the gram in, who's more of a friend of a friend to be honest I only see him about once a year if that)
I'm actually really relieved to not have it in my life anymore, and I'm looking forward to just going out and having a few drinks this New Years eve and being relatively normal the next day, as opposed to being up all night and in to the next day on coke and feeling like shite for half of the following week.
Anyway just wanted to pop my head in to say hi, and let anyone struggling know that you can knock it on the head when you are ready to. Welcome to PM me if you want more info on how I did it.